Think Crafts Blog – Craft Ideas and Projects – CreateForLess

Enter to win the Bias Tape Maker by Simplicity! Create customized single fold bias tape with the push of a button!

With the Simplicity Bias Tape Makers you can fold and evenly press fabric to make your own bias tape. Multiple sizes to choose from, and you can choose the fabrics that best show off your project. Electric- Bias Tape Maker can fold and press 12 yards of bias in 60 seconds. No more tediously trying to press bias tape into shape and burning fingertips. Several folder sizes are available, depending on the finished width you need, and the temperature of the pressing unit is adjustable for various fabrics. There’s even an auto-shut-off (after 10 minutes of non-use) for safety.

This Bias Tape Maker comes with 6 different sizes of Bias Tape Machine Tips. With multiple sizes to choose from, you can choose the fabrics that best show off your project. Quick and easy to use and change. Simply snap the desired size into place on your Bias Tape Maker machine and, once you have cut your fabric, your ready to go. Sizes included in this prize are Single Fold Tips in 3/8″, 1/2″, 3/4″, and 1 1/4″, and Quilt Binding Tips in 1 1/8″ and 1 1/4″.

Every Friday we’ll post a giveaway on Think Crafts and all you have to do is comment on the blog post answering the question of the week. We’ll pick the winner and contact them via email. Deadline is midnight tonight and the winner will be announced Monday. One entry per person please.

Question of week: Where do you get your crafting inspiration?

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

If your kids, like mine, love to play house for hours and hours, play food, you’ll know by now, figures largely into this imaginary world. My daughter loves to make tea and lunch for her babies and herself, and sometimes if I’m lucky, I’ll get a plate as well. This play pasta is easy enough to create that most kids can help out and the result will bring hours of play time fun.

If you can’t find beige felt, try soaking a few pieces of white felt in coffee or tea and allowing it to dry!

Here’s what you need

Tan or beige felt sheets
Pinking shears
Sewing Scissors
Needle and matching thread
Ruler and pencil
Batting

Tortellini

1. Cut 3-inch diameter circles from your felt.
2. Lay a quarter sized lump of batting in the center of your circle and fold over into a half-circle. Stitch a few stitches at the point to hold the shape in place.
3. Bring the two sides of the half-circle together and cross over, stitching them in place.
4. Fold the rounded edge over to finish the tortellini shape.

Ravioli

1. Cut 2 2-inch squares using your pinking shears.
2. Sand which a quarter sized piece of batting between the two layers of felt.
3. Stitch a square 1/2 inch in from the sides around the square, sealing the batting in place.

Linguini

1. Using your ruler, mark out 1/2 inch wide strips along the length of your felt.
2. Cut out the strips to make long noodles
(if you want you can also cut a wobbly shape out of red felt to make a blob of spaghetti sauce to set over the linguini!)

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

In the last few weeks, my summer flowers have begun to fade and the mums are starting to make a showing in my garden. Fall is on the way. From one of the windows of our house we have been watching tiny, bright yellow birds feast of the shriveling heads from our row of sunflowers. It’s been so much fun watching them flit and fly around the plants that I decided to spread the wealth around the house so that we had a view form every window with these sunflower head feeders.

If you don’t have sunflowers growing in your yard, you can sometimes find them through crafts stores, florists or even your local farmers market.

Here’s what you need:

Two sunflower heads per feeder
Floral wire
Ribbon
Needle-nose pliers
Wire cutters
Embroidery needle

1. Use the wire cutters to trim the stalk of the flowers back as far as you can.

2. Cut a 12 inch piece of wire and thread it through the back of one of the flowers. If the wire is bending, use the needle to make a hole in the flower before you push the wire through. Use your pliers to pull it out the front side of the flower and then thread it back through to the back about 1/4 of an inch over from where the first hole is.

3. Using the same wire, repeat the process with the other head so that the two flowers lie back to back.

4. Pull the wired tightly and twist together to secure. Trim ends.

5.  Thread the ribbon between the two heads below where the wire connects them. Bring the two ends of the ribbon up over the top of the flowers and tie a knot just at the edge of the flower heads. Tie another knot in the ribbon about 8 inches up, leaving a loop in between knots.

6. Hang from a tree near a window and watch the birds flock!

By Scrapbook & Paper Crafts Contributor Jennifer, from the blog “So Many Products, So Little Time”.

I love to go green whenever possible, so I try to find ways to reuse objects around the house.  One of my favorite items to reuse is an empty plastic juice container.  I use the Welch’s brand – they are very sturdy and you can even run them through the dishwasher before decorating.  In the past I have decorated quite a few for my scrap room to hold supplies.  My son recently got a new desk for his room so I decorated this can to hold his pencils.  He also loves to write notes to his friends, so I created a matching mini notebook.

Supplies used:

K & Company – Actopus Collection

• 12×12 Paper Pad
• Rub-ons
• Grand Adhesion Sticker

Ribbon
Plastic Juice Container
Composition Notebook (small)
Strong Adhesive

To cover the juice can:

* Cut a strip of paper to cover the entire side of the can and adhere.  You will need to use use a strong tape such as Therm O Web Zips Craft Adhesive Lines.

* Cut a small strip of paper and adhere to the top edge of the can using the same adhesive.

To cover the notebook.

* Cut a piece of paper to cover the notebook and adhere using a strong adhesive

* Apply rub-ons (see picture) to the notebook.

* Affix 3 Dimensional sticker to center of the notebook.

* Adhere piece of ribbon to edge of the notebook.  You can also tie a bow if desired.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

My youngest child is headed off to school this fall and, being the girly girl she is, she has a whole closet full of new dresses and skirts that she deemed school worthy. And since she has changed her clothing color palate from red and pale pink to Hot pink and lime green, we are in need of some new hair bobbles to go with her back to school outfits. Knitted flowers look complicated but are really fairly simple little projects that can be completed in a sitting, or carted around with you to work on here and there. They are also a great way to use up leftover yarn, that is, if you happen to have hot pink and lime green yarn just hanging around in your stash!

Here’s what you need

2 colors of worsted weight yarn
Size US 5 knitting needles
Yarn needle
Hair Clips

For Each Petal:

Cast on 4 sts
Row 1: Knit into front and back of first st, Knit 3 sts (5 sts)
Row 2: Purl into front and back of first st, purl 4 (6 sts)
Row 3: Knit first two sts together, knit two, knit last two sts together (4 sts)
Row 4: Purl first two sts together, purl last 2 sts together (2 sts)
Break Yarn, weave ends in and tie off, slid to the end of the needle

Knit five petals in this manner, casting each on to the same needle where the last petal is stored. On the fifth needle, do not break yarn, instead use it to knit across all 10 sts then thread the yarn onto the needle and run it back through the loop of each sts as you pull it off the knitting needle. Pull tightly to draw together the petals, forming a flower. Tie yarn off and weave in ends.

Thread the yarn needle with the contrasting yarn and whip stitch around the edges of each petal. Stitch a few loops up from the center of the flower to accent the core. Tie off and weave in ends. Press the flower with a hot, steam iron and sew or glue the back onto a hair clip.

By Guest Blogger, Jennifer from the blog “So Many Products, So Little Time”.

My husband Steve grew up a farm boy in Southwest Iowa.  A tractor originally owned by his Grandpa Stanley Hansen was passed down to  his father Robert Hansen.  When Steve was a young boy while he was driving it, the tractor rolled over on top of him.  Miraculously he wasn’t hurt.  The ground was very soft from a recent rain and they think it had just enough give that it kept him safe. The tractor was damaged after rolling over and so they stored it.  A few years ago my husband started to restore this tractor and finished it up a couple years ago.  It currently takes up his side of the garage and he likes to drive it during tractor rides at the local county fairs. I made this album of pictures with him and his tractor. I used pictures from the recent Warren County Fair, and from back in 1951.

Supplies used:

Wooden Album: Genuinely Jane Studios (4 pages – 8 sides) approx. 5 x 6 ½”
Plaid FolkArt Paint - silver, black, red
Jewels
Chipboard Circles
White Cardstock
Black Photo Corners:  Scrapbook Adhesives by 3L
Ribbon
Provo Cuttlebug Embossing Machine
American Crafts Black Paper
Label Tape/Machine

I started by painting the tractor part of the wood album red, and the side of the tires black. I used my circle Coluzzle template to determine the tire sizes and then cut them out.  Be sure when using a Coluzzle knife that you have it straight up when cutting.  If you do not have a Coluzzle or large punches, you can trace a template and cut by hand.

I ran my circles through the Cuttlebug Embossing Swiss Dots template to give them some dimension.

I made my hubcaps by using chipboard circles and used the outside ring for the large tire and the inside circle for the smaller tire.  I painted them with Plaid silver paint. After gluing down the tires and hubcaps, I added red jewels to the centers.

Next all you have to do is add your photos, photo corners and captions. I used white cardstock as a backdrop for each photo. To make the small pictures, I used the collage 4×6 print feature at Walgreens (most photo centers would have the same function).  I selected 4 pictures that were either all portrait or all landscape and for around 25 cents. I had 4 mini photos that fit perfectly as tractor windows. Their size is 1 ¾ X 2 ½”.

Lastly join all your pages together with ribbon or a binding ring.

By Kid’s Craft Contributor, Gillian from the blog “Dried Figs and Wooden Spools”.

I’m kind of an opinionated sewer. And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one. I have my ideas on when you need to follow rules and when you don’t, what you must have and what you can frankly do without, and I have serious opinions on patterns. Mainly that most of them are terrible these days.

I’m not sure who the pattern companies think they are making patterns for, but many of the ones I’ve run across in recent years are so garbled they would confuse even advanced sewers. I bought one for a simple elastic neck dress for my daughter last fall that seemed to have been written in some language other than english and then badly translated three or four times before it got to me. Awful.

So when I do find a good source for patterns that are well made, and that make great garments, I’m pretty jazzed. For grown up girl patterns you can’t beat Wendy from Built by Wendy. But for little bugs I think some of the best patterns available come from Oliver + S, like this Ice Cream Dress.

First off, they are unbelievably cute. As in, I would dress my child in nothing else if I had time to make them all cute. Secondly, they are obviously made with kids in mind. No tight closures or seams in weird spots that are likely to itch. They are most definitely designed to be comfortable and long lasting.

Now, obviously they don’t sew themselves, and they aren’t necessarily beginner patterns. But they are well written and well illustrated so if you are a reasonably competent sewer and you read the directions carefully, you’ll turn out a beautiful outfit for your kiddo. At our house we’re part way through making a second Ice Cream Dress (the first get A LOT of wear) as well as a Birthday Party Dress which I’m finding equally satisfying to sew. One note I’ll make is to be sure to pre-wash your fabric. I know, I know, I hate to prewash too, but your kids will love these clothes, and it would really be a shame to have them shrink up all funky on that first wash. So Pre-wash, and then sew away!